


at least as deep as the pacific ocean

by astrolesbian



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, im honestly ashamed of myself, this is the most sterotypical au ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3804148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolesbian/pseuds/astrolesbian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Patroclus somehow has not noticed that his new favorite coffee shop seemed to only hire possible models, but, well. There’s a thin line between noticing and admiring a person’s looks and being creepy about it.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>(aka the very, very cliche coffee shop au.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	at least as deep as the pacific ocean

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was inspired after i did a prompt on tumblr and then a cute anon came to ask if i wanted to write more. and i really meant to write some cute little 1k snippet and get it back to them, but then it became this. and it's soooooo cliche. and i LOVE it. shoutout to that anon for inspiring it!!
> 
> my fancasts were as follows: achilles as just....some hot dude, patroclus as rami malek and then ruth negga as briseis. anyway. ENJOY!

Being a med student has half a dozen different unwritten rules. An example: sleeping in the lab is not _technically_ allowed, even though everyone does it anyway. Another: eight a.m. classes are the spawn of the Devil, but also annoyingly necessary for the world to continue on, much like many species of wild animals (examples being spiders, and wolves, both of which Patroclus unapologetically hates). The most important rule, however: there must be unlimited access to coffee at all times. If Pat considered himself more of a theoretical scientist, or some kind of a mathematician, which he does _not,_ he would try to construct some kind of equation about it (med students minus coffee equals pain and suffering?) but as it is, that kind of thing makes his head hurt.

The important thing: med students love their coffee. Pat is a med student. Therefore, Pat needs good coffee, preferably good espresso, readily available at all times.

Which is what led him, in the first place, to the cafe on the corner of the street named _Philatos._

It’s tiny, with barely enough room inside for a few tables and the counter, and one of the lights flickers and won’t stop, but it has three very important qualities that instantly make it Pat’s go-to coffee place.

One: it is literally two buildings away from his apartment, meaning he will no longer have to call Briseis to go on coffee runs for him at three in the morning, and he will thus no longer owe her pancakes at the campus diner every time she does so, which will save him untold amounts of money that he could then use for, well. Whatever. (He doesn’t really buy much, or even pay a lot of rent, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

Two: the coffee is orgasmic. And Pat does not usually compare things to orgasms, but. Holy shit. _This coffee._ This coffee is like having a religious experience. This coffee is sweet, caffeinated heaven. This is coffee for the gods. This is the kind of coffee you write sonnets about.

(Point is, it’s damn good coffee. And circling back to the nonexistent, but nonetheless distinctly proven, med student/coffee equation, having damn good coffee five minutes from his apartment is, at the very least, an act of a kind and merciful god.)

Three: there is a man who works the espresso machine, and he is basically a model, all tall and blond and freckled and green-eyed and really, really ridiculously gorgeous.

Number three is _not,_ as Briseis likes to claim, the most important reason the cafe is in Pat’s top three study haunts nowadays. It’s really not. He comes there for the coffee, and the quiet, and he usually ends up getting a lot of work done. And he will occasionally take a break and watch the model guy hum along to Taylor Swift while he works the espresso machine. But not _often._ Certainly not enough to make it the sole reason he likes this place so much. It’s just an added bonus, if he had to call it anything.

And okay, it’s not that Patroclus somehow hadn’t _noticed_ that his new favorite coffee shop only seemed to hire possible part-time models, but, well. There’s a thin line between noticing and admiring a person’s good looks and being creepy about it.

And Pat thinks that most likely, going to a cafe specifically because the man at the counter is incredibly hot and you want to get a chance to see him at least once per day would probably fall directly on the _fucking creepy_ side of the spectrum. So he does not go to the cafe to see the part-time model guy. He goes to study, and for coffee.

And if he gets to sneak a few looks at the guy’s ass when he’s mopping or whatever, then that’s fine too.

 

It's always quiet in the cafe; easier to work in than his apartment, which has a dripping faucet that is all kinds of distracting. Pat is fairly sure he's become one of the place's only regulars by the Thursday that he first has a more-than-three-words conversation with Hot (Possibly A Model) Guy. It's raining, cold and a little gloomy, and Pat is trying to work on his thesis.

“Hey,” the Hot (Possibly A Model) Guy calls over to him. The shop is empty, and Par’s waiting for his second double-shot latte of the day, and he jumps a little guiltily when the guy yells, like somehow he could see through the back of his computer to discover that he was playing solitaire instead of doing work.

“Yeah?” he calls back, without looking up, because it makes him seem like he’s not hanging on the guy’s every word.

“I’m trying to get better at making those shapes in the foam,” the H(PAM)G says. Pat, internally, decides that that's a stupid moniker and vows to stop using it. “Mind if I practice a little on yours?”

The latte usually comes with a leaf drawn in foam, which always looks nice until Patroclus takes a sip, in which case it crumbles. But he doesn’t think he would mind a change.

“Sure,” he says, and goes back to reading a printed-out article, trying to focus on that and only that so his heart won’t pound too loudly.

He does end up getting absorbed in his work, making notes in the margins with a green pen, but when he looks up, there’s his latte sitting there, with a shaky skull drawn in the foam. He lets out a surprised laugh.

When he looks up at the model guy, he’s walking into the back room for something, but Pat thinks he sees a tiny smile on his face.

It’s a nice smile.

 

One night he stumbles in at a little after midnight after his shift shadowing at the hospital, too pumped up with adrenalin from the ambulance coming in to go to sleep, even if he has class at eight and really should get some rest. But coffee is strength, after all, so he walks in, yawning, to find the model guy closing up.

“Oh, man,” he says, yawning again, embarrassingly loudly. “I’m sorry. I just wanted a coffee.”

“At midnight?” the guy asks, raising an eyebrow. “Dude, maybe hot chocolate or something instead? You look wired.”

Pat considers sleep versus working on his thesis a little, but then figures he’ll probably just end up re-watching video game playthroughs or playing the Sims all night instead of actually getting anything done, since the only place where he can be productive lately seems to be this coffee shop.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Do you have mint?”

The guy scoffs. “ _Do we have mint_ , he says.”

Pat takes that as a yes, and sits down at a table to watch the guy make his hot chocolate.

Somewhere between sitting down and turning to watch, his eyes take a detour and fall closed, but it’s very nice behind them, dark and quiet and --

“Dude, oh my god, wake up,” a voice says. It’s a nice voice. Nice to wake up to. Pat does what the voice says.

The model guy is smiling crookedly at him, holding a hot chocolate in one hand.

“Please go get some sleep,” he says, holding it out. “And not in my cafe.”

Pat takes it, suddenly feeling almost too tired to be embarrassed, and fishes around in his pocket for his wallet. “Let me just pay,” he says.

The guy chuckles, and waves him off, already turning away. “It’s on the house,” he says, and vanishes into the back. Pat stares after him.

 

“You’re hopeless,” Bris says. Patroclus has, rather unwillingly, brought her for lunch in the cafe, because he hasn’t been grocery shopping in a while and he doesn’t want to feed her ramen noodles. And then she insisted on seeing the cafe where he “spends every waking moment” (which is a _complete exaggeration,_ but whatever).

“What?” he asks. She smiles and links her arm through his, like she always does when they walk together.

“You,” she repeats, “are hopeless.” She inclines her head subtly towards the possible model at the counter. “You should just talk to him.”

Patroclus stops dead in his tracks and turns his head to stare at her until she understands how ridiculous an idea that is. She doesn’t get his drift, and just raises her eyebrows back at him, patiently.

“What?” she says. “It’s not like you’re not as pretty as he is.”

Patroclus tries not to feel vaguely insulted at the idea that the model guy is just _pretty._ Anyone can be pretty. This guy is like how the cafe’s coffee tastes, the kind of beauty you write sonnets about. Or the kind you _would_ write sonnets about, if you were good at that sort of thing, which Pat is not.

He shrugs, which makes her scowl.

“ _Pat,_ ” she says, but then they arrive at the counter, and he hurries to order before she can start to argue with him about how he should take a risk once in a while and ask the guy out or something else he can’t do because the model guy is out of his league.

“Caramel latte for her, and--”

“Latte, double shot,” the guy grins. It’s heart-stoppingly beautiful, and Pat tries to resist gasping at it. “You think I don’t know your order by now? I’m insulted, dude. You’re here all the time.”

“Didn’t think I was that memorable,” Patroclus says, trying to smile back, and also trying to keep eye contact, which he’s heard is important. Except it’s sort of like trying to look into the sun, and he finds himself staring at his own feet instead.

The guy laughs. “I’ve been calling you Double-Shot in my head,” he says. “Should probably put a name to the face.”

“I’m Patroclus,” Patroclus says. “Um. And you?”

“Achilles,” the guy says, with another stupidly attractive smile.

“Briseis,” Bris pipes in. “Not that anyone was wondering.”

“Nice to officially meet you,” Achilles says to Patroclus, and winks at him before turning to Bris. “You too.”

Despite the fact that Achilles knows his name now, he calls out “Hey, come and get it, Double-Shot,” when their coffee and lunch is done, and Patroclus smiles really ridiculously into his hands like an eleven-year-old with their first crush when he goes up to get it.

 

He kind of stops bothering to pretend that Achilles isn’t the main reason he likes the cafe so much.

The coffee is still incredible, though. He wasn’t lying about that.

 

“What even is all that work you do all the time?” Achilles asks one afternoon, when the sun is shining directly through the window into Pat’s eyes and really starting to get on his nerves, and he latches on to the question because it gives him an excuse to walk up to the counter and get another brownie while he answers.

“School stuff,” he says. “I’m in med school right now.”

“A doctor?” Achilles says. “Holy shit. So that’s why you drink two double-shot lattes a day.”

Patroclus smiles, even though he can feel how tired his face must look while doing it. “The life of a med student is a stressful one,” he says. “Coffee is strength, and sleep is for the weak, and all that shit.”

Achilles grins and leans over the counter. “I gotta admit, I was kinda pegging you as something else.” His smile has remained as dazzling as ever, even as Patroclus has gotten to know him better, and it’s kind of unfair, because now Achilles is _nice_ as well as gorgeous. A deadly combination.

“Oh yeah?” Pat asks, taking a bite of his brownie. “What?”

“I dunno,” Achilles says. “Like, a robot, that needed coffee for fuel. Not so bad, ‘cause it meant you’d be here all the time.”

“Yeah, I guess it gets boring,” Pat says. “Being here by yourself all day.”

“Not so much now,” Achilles says, and he taps one finger on the plate containing Pat’s brownie. “Eat it quick. It’s way better warm.”

“Okay,” Pat says, and escapes back to his seat, unable to stop smiling to himself as he eats the brownie. It’s true. It is better warm.

 

The next day, Achilles sits down next to him and says “Did it hurt, when you fell from heaven?”

“Oh my god,” Patroclus says, and breaks into unattractive, snorting laughter. “Achilles, stop making fun of me, I’m working.”

Achilles makes a frustrated face, which quickly vanishes when Pat looks at him. “You’re always working.”

“I want to graduate,” Patroclus says. “I kind of have to do work, to do that?”

“Okay, whatever,” Achilles says. “Not like I’m not super impressed by all that, dude. But it’s my lunch break, so do you wanna hang out for an hour? You’ve been working all morning.”

Patroclus considers spending the lunch break back home in his empty apartment, and then considers hanging out with Achilles and probably doing something really stupid.

It’s kind of a no brainer.

“Sure,” he says, and Achilles’ answering smile is so bright and surprised that Pat has to blink a couple times, like he looked too hard at a lightbulb.

 

“You’re fucking with me,” Patroclus says later, unable to wipe the huge grin off his face.

“No, I swear,” Achilles says. “It happened. It was a wild fucking year.”

“You did _not_ jump off someone’s roof onto a _tree,_ ” Pat says. Things like that _don’t happen_ , except in bad action movies.

“I did!” Achilles is laughing now, which makes Pat laugh too. They’re sitting on a bench in the park, talking about college, which slowly progressed into talking about the fraternity he was in and all the crazy stunts he pulled, half of which Pat doesn’t believe.

“And you weren’t kicked out of school for all this stupid crap?”

“Crazy, right?”

“So how’d you end up working at the cafe?” Pat asks. Achilles shrugs, and stretches his legs out in front of him, studying them to avoid looking him in the eye.

“I dunno,” he says. “Really. It’s not a cop-out. It just kind of happened.”

“Why are you here, then? In the city?” He didn’t go to school here, Pat knows that from all the frat bro stories.

“I needed to get away from home,” Achilles says. “My mom, especially. She wasn’t cool with some stuff, stuff about me. So I left.”

“Yeah,” Patroclus says, quiet now, staring out at the people passing them as they sit there on their bench. “Yeah, I know how that is.”

Achilles huffs a laugh, still staring at his legs. “I figured.”

“How?” Pat turns to look at him, and Achilles looks back, his eyes warm and brown and searching.

“I dunno,” he says again. “You just --” He waves a hand, aimlessly. “You make sense. It’s like I can read you, I guess. Like I know you or something.”

“We just met like a month ago,” Pat says, kind of dubiously.

“I know, that’s why it’s weird,” Achilles says. “You know what I mean, though?”

Patroclus thinks about it. Thinks about drifting back to the cafe every single day and watching the sun glint off Achilles’ hair. Thinks about being able to talk to him easily, even with his insane crush getting in the way. How everything narrows down to him and his books and Achilles in that cafe, simple and readable.

“You know,” he says. “I think I do.”

He smiles then, and Achilles smiles back.

And they sit on the bench, and it’s warm outside, and Pat closes his eyes and just exists, for a little while, with Achilles. It’s nice.

They walk back to the cafe after, not saying anything, but Achilles smiles aimlessly the whole way, and vanishes into the back to work on something or other, and Pat goes back to his books, but it feels peaceful, like something has finally slotted into place.

 

Achilles likes bad action movies and terrible top 40 music and figs, of all things, and has some pictures from his college years where he wore a lot of snapbacks that Pat laughs at for five minutes before he can manage to stop. He likes playing guitar, too, and only fucks around like he’s gonna play _Wonderwall_ for a few seconds before playing an actual song, something quick and light that Pat doesn’t recognize, but likes, nodding along as he works on his thesis. Achilles starts playing his guitar when there are no customers that need to be helped, humming along in concentration, and it’s distracting in a way that makes Pat not mind being distracted. Sometimes he dedicates them to “my favorite med student” and plays a song he knows Pat hates. (Pat always smiles ridiculously while pretending he doesn't like it.)

They always take Achilles’ lunch break together, wandering around the city, laughing and talking and sometimes walking in silence, just existing together, experiencing things together.

It’s nice. It’s always surprising to Pat somehow, that it’s this nice.

 

“Most beloved,” Achilles says one afternoon, when he’s sitting next to Pat at Pat’s table, plucking aimlessly at his guitar. Pat is thoughtfully eating his third brownie of the day, wondering if maybe chocolate will help his brain as much as caffeine usually does.

“What?” Pat asks, in response to Achilles’ seemingly out-of-nowhere statement.

“That’s what the name of the shop means,” Achilles clarifies. “Most beloved.”

“Huh,” Pat says, and considers it. “Nice.”

Achilles keeps plucking at the guitar, and says nothing. This is odd, especially after he’s the one who started the conversation. Pat looks at him.

“Are you okay?” he asks, finally, and Achilles sighs and leans his head back until it hits the wall with a soft _thud._

“My mom says she’s coming to visit,” he says. Pat frowns.

He doesn’t know much about Achilles’ mother, only that they don’t really get along. But he always has this clipped, forced sort of nonchalance in this voice whenever he mentions her, and it kind of makes Pat think there’s a lot more emotional damage in the whole situation than Achilles wants to pretend there is.

“And that’s -- you’re okay with that?”

“It’s not like I could hide where I was,” Achilles says. “My dad helps me pay for the place. Even if they’re not, like, _together_ anymore, she would have found out sooner or later, I guess.”

The press of his lips makes it clear he doesn’t really want to talk about it, and Pat’s mind is still kinda stuck on _helps me pay for the place,_ which means he _owns_ the place, and that’s -- that’s actually more of a surprise than his mom coming. “Wait, you own this place? It’s yours?”

That gets him a raised eyebrow and a hint of a smile. “Dude, what did you think?”

“That you just worked here or something, I dunno.” Looking back, it seems increasingly obvious that Achilles would own _Philatos,_ seeing as he’s the only one who ever works here. “Shit, you should hire help.”

“I know,” he says. “I have some sometimes. Guy comes in and bakes at night. He’s a ridiculously good baker, but he’s not so good with people most of the time. I’ve been trying to find someone to work the counter, though.”

“Actually,” Pat says thoughtfully, “Bris kinda needs a job.” Bris is working in a Subway right now, which she despises. And she’d like working here where she can keep an eye on him, he thinks.

“Your friend, right?” Achilles says, nodding thoughtfully. “Yeah, tell her to give me a call. I’ll put my number in your phone.”

They don’t talk about his mom again for a while, but Bris gets the job.

 

The next day, he’s at the cafe at ten in the morning and doesn’t look up until two, and even then it’s only brief because he has a test in three hours, and that gives him one more hour to study for it before he has to get his shit together and walk to class. He blinks hard at the book in front of him, hand scrambling for his lukewarm coffee.

“Here,” a voice says, and a plate containing a ham and swiss melt and some chips settles itself on top of Pat’s textbook. And then a hand takes his coffee cup, leaving Pat scrambling out of his seat, reaching for it.

“Hey!”

“You had two double-shots already, Double-Shot,” Achilles says. “No more until you fucking eat something. House rules.”

“Come on,” Pat complains, standing on his tiptoes in an attempt to get his coffee back. Achilles just calmly lifts it into the air, holding it high above his head.

“You’re so short,” Achilles says, delightedly. Patroclus scowls.

“I hate you,” he says. Achilles merely raises an eyebrow and turns to walk back to the counter, like he can see right through Pat’s bullshit.

“This isn’t _funny,_ Achilles.” Patroclus _needs_ coffee, okay. Rules of being a med student.

“No, it’s an _intervention,_ ” Achilles says. “Eat your lunch.”

Then he leaves into the back room, throwing a taunting grin over his shoulder. Pat glares at the sandwich, and seriously considers refusing to eat it out of spite, but it smells amazing and so he gives in and takes a bite. It’s delicious, which really only serves to make him even more angry.

“Oh my god,” Achilles says, from the counter. “Are you _pouting?”_

Pat takes another very angry bite of the sandwich. “ _No,_ ” he says.

“Holy shit,” Achilles laughs. “That’s _adorable._ ”

Pat puts his face in his hands. “Stop making fun of me and give me my coffee back, you monster,” he says.

“Eat your lunch and maybe you’ll get lucky,” Achilles says in return, grinning at him with an annoying amount of amusement. He really is a monster, Pat thinks, taking another moody bite of his sandwich. A gorgeous, blonde, freckled monster who deprives innocent med students of coffee.

He looks up at Achilles again, who is still watching him from the counter, consideringly.

“Okay, dude, how about this -- if you eat all your lunch I’ll give you a brownie on the house,” Achilles bargains.

Patroclus grins. “Deal.”

(Somewhere in the distance, Briseis gags. “I _hate_ this job,” she informs the muffins in the display case, sighing deeply. “They’re _gross._ ”)

 

It’s not until a few weeks later that Pat’s stopped wondering about Achilles’ mom, because what with work and school and coming here to study and hang out with Achilles and Bris, there’s been a lot of other stuff he’d rather think about. Bris is a natural at making the leaves in the foam, something that Achilles complains about -- “It took me months to learn how to do that!” -- and Achilles seems to really like her, especially when she tells embarrassing stories about him as a little kid.

Achilles doesn’t start taking more breaks or anything, but Pat moves his table closer to the counter, and talks to Bris as she makes lattes and to Achilles as he frosts cupcakes, and sometimes the shop is still quiet and empty in the afternoons, when the lunch rush is over and the after-class rush hasn’t yet started, and Achilles gets out his guitar again, and plays Pat’s favorites, humming along under his breath, and Pat gets this ridiculous little smile on his face that Bris laughs at later, and it’s good, it’s all good.

Of course, that’s when she does come -- one sunny afternoon when Achilles is fucking around humming love songs, and sitting next to Pat on his bench while he’s trying to study, being as annoying as possible.

Pat hadn’t thought it was possible for a human being to darken a doorway, but she does. She comes in like a storm, and he feels her eyes on him almost before he sees them, icy cold and disapproving.

“I thought this was your lunch break,” she says, and her voice is like steel, no hint of bending.

Achilles tenses up at the sound of her voice, putting his guitar down. Her eyes follow it, and then snap back to Achilles himself, who is standing up now, gesturing towards the back.

“Yes, it is. Briseis works here, and Patroclus is a friend. They usually eat with me.” He looks at her, with a practiced, detached coldness. Pat knows him well enough to know it’s fake. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

She smiles, and it’s sharp. “I wanted to surprise you, sweetheart.”

She sweeps ahead of him to the back room, not even turning her head to look at Bris as she goes. Bris’ cheeks turn from light brown to red, either from anger or embarrassment; Pat can’t tell.

Achilles stands as if to go, and Pat reaches for his wrist in a sudden impulse, because he’s never seen Achilles so uncomfortable before, and that says a lot. “Hey,” he says, then stops. “It’s, um. It’ll be fine.”

Pat’s not the best at comforting people. Something he’s going to have to work on, he thinks. Being a doctor, and all. But Achilles smiles, as if he knows what he means.

“Patroclus,” he says, and nothing else. Somehow it still carries more weight, more meaning. How does he do that?

Pat squeezes his wrist, once, and then lets go. Achilles smiles, as if Pat’s the one who needs reassurance.

Pat feels the eyes of Achilles’ mother on him as Achilles walks towards the back, and unconsciously, he shivers.

Bris walks up to take his hands and pull him to his feet, taking his arm, standing next to him in her flower-patterned dress. The only normal thing left, Pat thinks, and laughs to himself for being over-dramatic.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go.”

 

When they come back later, the shop is closed, and Achilles’ mother’s car is still there, gleaming blue against the red brick of the building.

“You wanna go watch medical dramas and complain about how inaccurate they are?” Bris asks lightly, smiling at him, and Pat nods. Her face softens a little.

“He’ll be fine,” she says. “He knows how to handle himself, you know.”

“I wish I could help,” Pat says. Bris chuckles.

“I know,” she says. “But he’s gotta do this himself, I think. Come on,” she adds. “The cafe will still be here tomorrow.”

 

The bell rings the next morning, as he pushes open the door. Achilles is standing with his back to it, messing with some food on a tray, but he turns hurriedly when he hears the noise, pushing his hair back out of his face and letting out a breath.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Pat says. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Um, is everything --”

“Everything’s fine,” Achilles says. “Everything’s good.”

“Okay,” Pat says, wondering why he looks so nervous, if this is true.

“I just, um.” Achilles pushes a hand through his hair. “I kind of realised something, I guess?”

“You did?”

“Yeah, like, she can’t -- she can’t see me here.”

Pat raises an eyebrow, to show how much he understands this statement.

“Oh, god,” Achilles says, messing with his hair again. “Okay, so, like, I guess I was kind of scared? Because I felt like she still had a hold on me. Like she could see me doing stuff and she didn’t, like, approve or whatever. But when she visited, I just, I kind of realised. She really can’t see me here. She can’t affect me anymore, I guess.”

“Okay,” Patroclus says, and puts his bag down on the chair. “That’s good?”

Achilles gets this frustrated look on his face. “I’m doing this wrong,” he says, and comes out from behind the counter. “Look, it’s like -- I can do things I want to do now. I don’t have to worry about her liking what I do. So I can just go for it, you know?” His eyes are intense, and Pat nods, nearly hypnotised.

“You can go for it,” he echoes.

“Yeah,” Achilles says. “Yeah, and -- and I wanted to ask you something.”

“Anything,” Pat says, and means it. His hands are shaking a little, and he doesn’t know why.

Achilles licks his lips, and Pat traces the movement with his eyes, unable to _not,_ with Achilles standing so close and _god,_ Pat wants to kiss him. He really wants to kiss him.

“Look, so, the thing is --” Achilles clears his throat. “Do you wanna go out sometime, or something?”

Pat freezes, and falls backwards into his chair, blinking.

“Oh shit,” Achilles says. “Shit, I’m sorry, did I do this wrong, _shit --_ ”

And then Achilles is about to turn and go into the back, and Pat can’t let that happen because Achilles just _asked him out_ and suddenly he’s standing and his hand is clutching Achilles’ t-shirt and their lips are pressed together, and Achilles isn’t kissing back, so Pat pulls back, suddenly nervous even though Achilles literally asked him out two seconds ago so he must have been wanting to kiss at some point, right? Right?

“Oh shit,” Achilles says, in a softer voice this time. Pat bites his lip nervously.

“Sorry, was that okay, I --”

“ _Yes,_ oh my god, it was _so_ okay _,_ ” Achilles says, and reaches out so he’s holding onto Pat’s shirt, too, and then they’re grinning ridiculously at each other, which is great, and then they’re kissing again, which is better. And Achilles is kissing back now, his hand at the back of Pat’s neck, holding him close, holding him steady, and this is the best thing that has ever _happened,_ and he’s just shifting closer to wrap his arms around Achilles’ waist when --

“Hey, Achilles, I know your mom must have bummed you out so if you wanna close today, that’s --”

Bris stops mid-sentence and blinks at them, and then slowly raises one eyebrow, crossing her arms. “Hm,” she says.

Pat’s cheeks are super red, he can feel it. “Hi?”

“No, I was wrong,” she says, trying to act sarcastic, but she’s smiling too hard for it to really work. “You seem to be in an excellent mood.”

“I am,” Achilles says. “I really am.” His hand find’s Pat’s, and he squeezes it tightly, grinning at him.

Pat covers his red face with one hand, and squeezes back with the other, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs. God, he loves them.

 

Later, they're sitting at Pat's table during lunch break, splitting a sandwich, and Pat asks, trying to be casual, "How long?"

Achilles looks at him for a second, considering, then chuckles, and shakes his head.

"Babe," he says, and Pat loves how easily the word falls from his tongue, "the first day you came in here your hair was all fucked up from the wind and your cheeks and your nose were all red. I couldn't even say anything to you, you looked so good."

Pat grins, and asks again. "How long?"

"Within the first five minutes," Achilles says. "Maybe the first two."

"Me too," Pat says. "Me too."

"We're so adorable, babe," Achilles says happily, kissing his cheek. Bris pretends to vomit, but her happiness for them hasn't yet warn off, so she doesn't really mean it. 

"Yeah," Pat says. "We totally are."

 

_end._

**Author's Note:**

> uh. wow. 
> 
> thank you all so much for the kind words and the kudos. i really, really do appreciate every bit of support this fic has gotten, and i'll do my best to just....accept the fact that y'all like it instead of feeling like i don't deserve the attention.
> 
> have a good day, everyone. tip your local barista. :-)


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